When last we left our DCEU heroes, Superman and Wonder Woman had been tenuously exonerated for dispatching their respective villains, but the Amazonian princess and her bat-sociate were still very much on the hook for a plethora of deceased henchmen and soldiers.

Also left unresolved, for you who care about such things, were the status of both Supes’ and Bats’ halos. Fortunately for my argument, the sanctity of the ideals they represent–the reason why each of their very identities supposedly hinge on their adherence to non-lethal takedowns–is the very reason they must have a lethal option at their disposal and why the trail of dead left in Diana’s and Bruce’s wakes may not only be justified, but may even make each that much more heroic. The virtues that outweigh life, that we’re told heroes are preserving by the recurring sacrifice of innocents to bloodthirsty villains, are themselves sacrificed if killing is never an option.

It may seem paradoxical that heroes must sometimes kill to preserve life, as antithetical as, say, a country founded to preserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness engaging in wars that can decimate all three. All lives, we’re reminded, eventually end, and forsaking the eternal values of compassion, love, forgiveness, etc. in order to preserve something as fleeting as life is ultimately more destructive. But if the lives of the victims of any given villain’s nefarious schemes are a small price to pay to preserve these virtues, can’t the same be said of the life of said villain? If the lives lost to murderous regimes are the cost of pacifism or non intervention, couldn’t it be said that the fallout from extinguishing these threats is the cost of protecting the innocent? Setting aside for the moment the threshold for justification of war, preemptive or defensive, its stakes are unmistakable.

Wars are the culmination of man’s frailty, the temporary suspension of virtue for the sake of survival, not just of a person or even a people, but sometimes of an ideal. As bad as that sounds, it is what it is: the breakdown of our better angels into the savagery of self preservation. When one side determines that the kid gloves are off, the other side doesn’t benefit from the virtue of keeping them on. It only forfeits the contested ground, which often consists of the very principles we cherish. In short, when virtues are discarded, it is imperative to their preservation that those who would pick them back up again are left standing in the end. That, unfortunately, can hardly be accomplished by a staunch refusal to take your enemy’s life.

There is an episode of Justice League Unlimited that, despite being tediously engineered to cast pacifism as a valid tool in warfare, in many ways set the bar for my perception of a successful Wonder Woman adaptation. Not surprisingly, it mirrors in many ways the recent film: a European battlefield, Ares as the big bad, a jaded Diana coming dangerously close to giving in to the bleakness she has fought to keep at bay, and even a demonstration of the power of peace and love in the face of the horrors of war. As much as I loved this episode for the novelty of seeing Hawk and Dove in action, not to mention the unapologetic incorporation of Wonder Woman’s Greek mythology backstory, it fails spectacularly in addressing the costs and the causes of warfare where the movie succeeds with flying colors. The latter artfully juxtaposes a significant display of mercy with the mournful realization that wellsprings of evil must be ended, displaying a levelheaded yet optimistic view of human nature. The former substitutes those astute nuances for the wish fulfillment of a killer automaton crafted by Hephaestus that is conveniently disarmed by a pacifism kill switch.

The extent to which real wars are instigated or supplied by third party interests, as the DCEU somberly demonstrates despite the aide of mythological interlopers, does not supplant the volition of those involved. While tempers may be stoked and belligerents may be armed, the genuine animosities and deep rooted misunderstandings that these outside forces twist to their own ends don’t simply evaporate when the immediate threat is removed. Perhaps shared witness to a supernatural slugfest between good and evil might cause opposing soldiers to embrace and celebrate their survival, but those for whom these wonders are second hand reports will most likely still harbor the same resentments they did before. Perhaps the sparing of Dr. Poison may have shown that even the most wicked specimen of mankind is deserving of mercy, but it mercifully did not segue into the all too frequent non sequitur reasoning that mercy itself can diffuse all violence. What it did was turn the tables on Wonder Woman’s enemy, weakening his resolve and allowing for his complete obliteration. In essence, it was the only compelling iteration of a recurring argument against lethal force that seemingly plagues all comics.

Just as surely as every superhero is confronted at some point with the life-and-death stakes of their vocation, some well meaning confidant always cautions that, “if you kill, you’re no better than they are.” This refrain perfectly encapsulates the absurd oversimplification with which lethal force is often treated in comics, implying two things: first, that the only thing separating a hero from a villain, ethically and morally speaking, is the willingness to kill; and second, that taking one life fundamentally and irrevocably alters a person’s character, twisting them from whatever they were before into a “killer.”

Catching a fish doesn’t make you a fisherman. It doesn’t mean you liked it. It doesn’t mean you plan to do it again. It doesn’t even make it easier to do the next time. All it means is you’ve caught a fish. Likewise, killing one person doesn’t make you a killer. It makes you someone who has killed. I don’t doubt for a second that taking a life changes someone, perhaps even more so than any other experience one has had, but it remains merely an experience that contributes to one’s character. Having children changed me forever. I like to think I’m more responsible these days, and I can’t watch even the sappiest emotional climax that you see coming a mile away without tearing up a little. Despite the increased sentimentality and responsibility, however, I didn’t suddenly become an archetype of these added attributes to the exclusion of the life’s worth of experiences that came before. Having children didn’t overwrite the virtues and vices I had before with a new identity, it simply strengthened some virtues and weakened the grip that some of my vices had on me. Just as there is more to me than the aspect of fatherhood, and all the monumental changes it has affected on my life, there is more to a person who has intentionally taken a life than that one act, monumental as it is.

To discount this is to classify relatively benign villains like Mr. Freeze and Mr. Myxltpklt with the the do-gooders and to lump the likes of Carnage and Ultron in with Wolverine or the Punisher. At first glance this may not seem too far fetched.

After all, the fifth dimensional imp never causes any harm he can’t undo, and the good doctor Fries is only trying to save his terminally ill wife. So they knock over some diamond wholesalers or cause a little mayhem by rewriting physics, at least they never cross the red line. Plus, with the body count Logan and Castle have amassed, is it really a stretch to say they’re as irredeemable as Kasady or… Ultron? Such thinking is one dimensional, though, and may have sufficed to analyze the most basic story of good vs. evil, but it fails to address the complexity of real life or even modern comics. Sympathetic villains and flawed heroes exist precisely to account for these nuances. Ignoring the intricacies of morality when it’s convenient to proselytizing a No Kill message betrays the maturation of the genre and vilifies not only the capes and cowls but the badges and berets as well.

Now, I hate equivocation as much as the next guy, and I’ll make as strenuous a case as one could that the conduct of police and soldiers should be held to a higher standard than civilians, but in our imperfect world it is necessary to make practical distinctions even if they seem to defy a certain ideal. I understand the idealism of those who reject killing out of hand, whether on the battlefield, on the streets, or in our prisons. I would say I’m among the most politically idealistic individuals you’ll ever encounter, but our world is far from ideal. Remaining true to ideals on an individual level can guide one’s decisions, one’s votes, and one’s policy endorsements. It can even inspire others to share them, but no matter how adamantly you stick to your principles, some people will not share them. Some people, like your typical comic book villain for instance, don’t value life and liberty beyond their own, and generally speaking this mindset doesn’t often coincide with an open mind to others’ values. No matter how good of an example one sets, some people will always do the wrong thing. Some may even resent those whose virtue shines like a beacon, seething in their animosity until they decide to put on a nuclear powered mech suit and wreak havoc on the general population. These are people who will not change in this life, for whom virtues are noxious nuisances to be snuffed out and compassion is a weakness to be exploited, and to equate them with those whose regard for others’ lives and liberties is so high as to jeopardize their own is intellectually and morally indefensible.

Try as they might, heroes–on the page, the screen, or terra firma–cannot diffuse every situation in an ideal manner. All must use their judgement to bring a conclusion most in keeping with their calling. Sometimes the best that even a Batman or a Wonder Woman can do isn’t perfect. In Dawn of Justice, Batman thought he was at war, that the fate of not only his beloved black sheep of a city but the whole world depended on his securing a weapon against an all powerful enemy and keeping it out of the hands of a murderous megalomaniac. He turned out to be mistaken about who the big bad was, but his instincts and drive served him well in assessing what was at stake. Likewise Diana had her sights on the wrong enemy, but she knew the suffering that would result if she pulled her punches. Both heroes straight up killed some folk, with extreme prejudice. Both did everything in their considerable power to ensure the achievement of their goal–the protection of as many innocents as possible with the fewest casualties. Individuals may choose to turn the other cheek, but entities whose existence is predicated on the preservation of life and order don’t have that luxury. Bruce Wayne or Diana of Themyscira could be the bigger person and reap their eternal reward, but Batman and Wonder Woman cease serving their express purpose if they stand by while the innocent are slaughtered.

That is not to say that anything goes in war. Certainly there are levels of depravity reached in war that societies might be better served to imperil their survival rather than sink to. Perhaps an omnipotent observer could say with certainty that a given objective could be achieved without taking so much as one life, but no hero, however principled or powerful, has such knowledge. Part of what defines a hero is at least a degree of vulnerability, some skin in the game that elevates their actions from simply doing the right thing to a plane of selflessness. Often only the sacrifice of life and limb is considered, but true heroes routinely make decisions that could endanger their consciences and souls. Split second decisions can live with them forever. Those who are willing and able to defend their fellow man at such a cost should be applauded as much for this display of courage as for any other.

I imagine that to those of you still entrenched in Camp No Kill, the suggestion that killing might earn brownie points rather than black marks is rather controversial. Heros of any stripe can be polarizing figures, often because of the near perfection we expect from them, but any imperfect world in need of heroes cannot reasonably be expected to sustain their perfection. Whatever ill defined virtue being upheld with an unyielding commitment to preserve all life–especially that of villains–is betrayed many times over when that decision comes at the cost of innocent lives. Even if the objection is to “playing God” and deciding who lives and who dies, there exist in such imperfect worlds no win situations that necessitate such choices. Distasteful as they are, one cannot simply wish them away, and attempts to sidestep responsibility with thought experiments and philosophical stasis do nothing to redeem a failure to uphold the primary duty of self professed protectors, nor do they change the fact that such passing of the buck errs on the side of protecting the wicked rather than the innocent. Bottom line, I’m not saying that killing is always justified in such situations. I’m not even saying that these examples are justified. I am however rejecting wholeheartedly the argument that killing is never justified. Moreover, I reject in the strongest terms possible the notion that intentionally taking a life impedes in any way the free will that is always brought to bear when making such decisions in the future. In fact, the sanctity of free will is at the heart of any justification or judgement one might make, and an unflinching acknowledgment of this is quite possibly the most heroic thing one can do.